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The Apolyton Science Fiction Discussion Group: June Nominations

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  • #76
    Originally posted by SlowwHand
    I read enough to know Dreamcatcher is good
    It wasn't that good. Half the plot is ripped off from It and the other half is ripped off from Tommyknockers, and those are only slightly above average King books, at best.
    "We are living in the future, I'll tell you how I know, I read it in the paper, Fifteen years ago" - John Prine

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    • #77
      Originally posted by LDiCesare
      Particularly if you like computers. Stephenson is a great writer.
      I agree Stephenson is a great writer, but when he tackles the subject of computers directly, I think he falls apart. I thought In The Beginning Was The Command Line was rather pedestrian and a little naive.
      "We are living in the future, I'll tell you how I know, I read it in the paper, Fifteen years ago" - John Prine

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      • #78
        Originally posted by raghar
        I didn't think that small book that I seen was done from movie. So lets nominate Count Zero. It was somewhat better that its prequel. Nice story somewhat more as story than just plaing with mood of the story.
        My problem with this is that Count Zero is the second book in the Sprawl series and the events in CZ spin directly out of Neuromancer. It'll be hard to understand this book without reading the first. (Of course, according with William Gibson, you need a degree in art theory to understand it anyway. Sure, Gib, whatever you say... ).

        Personally, I think Johnny Mnemonic the movie was crap.
        Disgusting movie, its only saving grace being that it has Ice-T, Henry Rollins and my main man Udo Kier in it.

        The short story on the other hand, was excellent
        "We are living in the future, I'll tell you how I know, I read it in the paper, Fifteen years ago" - John Prine

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        • #79
          I wish I had nominated a book so I could turn around and trash it.
          "We are living in the future, I'll tell you how I know, I read it in the paper, Fifteen years ago" - John Prine

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          • #80
            Yeah. You seem to have chronic negativity going for you.
            Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
            "Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
            He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead

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            • #81
              Originally posted by SlowwHand
              Yeah. You seem to have chronic negativity going for you.
              I call them like I see them.

              I thought Dreamcatcher was a decent read, but King should retire soon for his own good, unless he's got another The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon left in him.
              "We are living in the future, I'll tell you how I know, I read it in the paper, Fifteen years ago" - John Prine

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              • #82
                Originally posted by molly bloom
                I'd like to nominate Richard Kadrey's 'Metrophage'- although all the Stephenson and Gibson and Sterling choices are equally appealing.

                Metrophage was good, similar to the work of Steve Aylett, who I also like. The complete text is available on line, as well (author released, not illegal).
                "We are living in the future, I'll tell you how I know, I read it in the paper, Fifteen years ago" - John Prine

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                • #83
                  Originally posted by Static Universe

                  My problem with this is that Count Zero is the second book in the Sprawl series and the events in CZ spin directly out of Neuromancer. It'll be hard to understand this book without reading the first. (Of course, according with William Gibson, you need a degree in art theory to understand it anyway. Sure, Gib, whatever you say... ).
                  In case my comments come off here as harsh, this interview with Gibson is what I am referring to:

                  WG: If I was doing a thesis on my work, I would try to figure out what the **** that Joseph Cornell stuff means in the middle of Count Zero. That's the key to the whole ****ing thing, how the books are put together and everything. But people won't see it. I think it actually needs someone with a pretty serious art background to understand it. You know, Robert Longo understood that immediately. I was in New York--I've got a lot of fans who are fairly heavy New York artists, sort of "fine art guys", and they got it right away. They read those books around that core. I was actually trying to tell people what I was doing while I was trying to discover it myself.

                  DW: It goes back to Postmodernism, to pieces again, and to making new wholes from fragments, doesn't it?

                  WG: Yeah. It's sort of like there's nothing there in the beginning, and you're going to make something, and you don't have anything in you to make it out of, particularly, so you start just grabbing little hunks of kipple, and fitting them together, and... I don't know, it seemed profound at the time, but this morning it's like I can't even remember how it works (laughs).
                  He also claims Philip K. Dick has no influence whatsoever on him, but here is is using the Dick term "kipple". WTF?
                  "We are living in the future, I'll tell you how I know, I read it in the paper, Fifteen years ago" - John Prine

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                  • #84
                    Review of Schismatrix Plus:
                    Review of Schismatrix Plus
                    http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Cultural/Art/schismatrix.html
                    "Love the earth and sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown . . . reexamine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency" - Walt Whitman

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                    • #85
                      Johnny Mnemonic may very well be Gibson's single best story. I'd have a hard time chosing between that and the short story Burning Chrome. Both are in the Gibson anthology Burning Chrome. Course, I haven't read Virtual Light yet or Mona Lisa Overdrive, so I can't say for sure. My personal opinion on Gibson is his best work was in the begining and he's been getting more boring with each new story.

                      It would be interesting to nominate an anthology. It would certainly give us a lot to discuss.
                      Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

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                      • #86
                        Well Gibson has more of that. I dissagree with his talks about hackers. He seems to talk like writing books have no connection with this "problem", and he sides with police.
                        Last edited by raghar; April 15, 2003, 17:57.

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                        • #87
                          Originally posted by raghar
                          Well Gibson has more of that. I dissagree with his talks about hackers. He seems to talk like writing books have no connection with this "problem", and he sides with police.
                          Gibson's earliest work is his best: Neuromancer and most of the Burning Chrome stories.

                          Personally, I think Gibson is to science fiction what Anne Rice is to horror; they're both English Lit majors who couldn't cut it in the field of mainstream fiction, so they try to pass themselves off like they're geniuses slumming in their respective genres.

                          Gibson's early work is brilliant precisely because he knows almost nothing about technology. By his own admission he knew zilch about computers when he invented his ideas of "cyberspace" in Neuromancer. He'd never even used one.

                          Only later did he begin peppering his work with "higher" literary characteristics, which more than show why he didn't make it in that world in the first place. He became boring.

                          Gibson has taken on the role of self-appointed guru of the "cyber" generation (whatever that is), a position he doesn't rightfully deserve to have, bypassing people who have a genuine affinity for the technological world past present and future like Bruce Sterling.
                          "We are living in the future, I'll tell you how I know, I read it in the paper, Fifteen years ago" - John Prine

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                          • #88
                            Nominations are over, the June voting thread is now up and running.
                            Last edited by JohnT; April 16, 2003, 15:33.

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